Ike victims pack convention center in search for shelter

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, September 16, 2008

With their homes flooded or their ceilings collapsed, more than 2,000 people — from the Fifth Ward to Pasadena to Spring — have so far flocked to the downtown convention center in search of food and shelter.

Clutching her 1-year-old grandson, whose tiny arms and legs were covered in blotchy red sores and scratches, Olga Cantu arrived at the George R. Brown Convention Center in a teary rage Monday. Her Pasadena apartment had flooded, and mold was setting in, she said. The $200 worth of groceries she had stocked up on had already rotted.

"I'm very sad, I mean sad," said Cantu, 40, a home health aide, fighting back tears. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. I don't know."

Demand grows for help

Hurricane Ike's destruction of homes was not isolated to the far-flung areas near the Gulf, said dozens of bleary-eyed people interviewed at the convention center, a growing temporary staging area. The devastation is right here, said the yellow wrist band-wearing evacuees.

Three exhibit halls on the ground floor are now serving as a homeless shelter, a triage center and a cafeteria to a mostly Houstonian crowd whose homes now are in shambles. The American Red Cross, which is organizing the relief efforts at the convention center, said that up to 5,000 people can be served at the site.

"People are frustrated," said Cliff Spencer, director of the shelter. "They've been bused around to go here and then bused around to come here. We're here to supply them with shelter and food."

The needs will be great. One inconsolable woman sobbed on her cot after learning her home had been flooded. Mothers breast-fed their newborn babies. Other people watched the news or cartoons on a large screen.

After several ceilings partially collapsed at Sherry Green's apartment and raw sewage pumped out from under the floors, a fire marshal condemned the building at 3814 Lyons where more than 160 senior citizens and disabled people lived.

"We could have very easily died in that building," said Green, 59, who has lived for a year at the affordable housing complex run by Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in the Fifth Ward. "We don't know where to go now."

Evacuation arranged

After condemning Green's apartment building Sunday night, a fire marshal arranged for residents to be evacuated to the convention center in the early hours of Monday.